Ex­er­cise cau­tion: 5 tips for avoid­ing work­out in­juries 1 2
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Stay­ing ac­tive is key to good health. Don’t let com­mon sprains and strains get in the way of your work­out. “While names sound the same, these are two very dif­fer­ent in­juries. A sprain af­fects lig­a­ments, while a strain af­fects ten­dons and/or mus­cles,” said Dr. Frank Benedetto, a doc­tor of phys­i­cal ther­apy and founder of ProVere Health, with four lo­ca­tions in New Jersey. “Lig­a­ments con­nect one bone to an­other bone. For ex­am­ple, the most fa­mous lig­a­ment in pop­u­lar me­dia, the ACL (an­te­rior cru­ci­ate lig­a­ment), con­nects the fe­mur (thigh bone) to the tibia (the shin bone). Ten­dons con­nect a mus­cle to a bone. The well known Achilles ten­don con­nects the calf mus­cle to the heel bone.”

Other ex­pert tips for avoid­ing work­out in­juries:

While many sports tend to have a par­tic­u­lar in­jury re­lated to it — think “ten­nis el­bow” — ham­string in­juries are per­haps the most com­mon across all sports, said Dr. Pablo Costa, an as­so­ci­ate pro­fes­sor in the de­part­ment of ki­ne­si­ol­ogy at Cal­i­for­nia State Univer­sity, Fuller­ton.

When ex­er­cis­ing start slowly, with a few rep­e­ti­tions or low mileage, and make sure any pro­gres­sion or in­crease fol­lows the same prin­ci­ples, said Dr. Jerome T. Ni­chols, sports medicine physi­cian at Roanoke-based Car­il­ion Clinic and clin­i­cal pre­cep­tor at Vir­ginia Tech School of Medicine.

“Try­ing to progress too quickly doesn’t al­low enough time for your mus­cles, ten­dons, lig­a­ments and bones to adapt to the new stresses. Also, mov­ing too quickly through strength train­ing ex­er­cises com­pro­mises form and risks in­jury,” Ni­chols said. or joint, how­ever, may be a sign of some­thing more se­ri­ous de­vel­op­ing.”

“Ad­e­quate con­sump­tion of wa­ter can help re­duce ten­don strains,” said Dr. Bruce Pinker, as­so­ci­ate with the Amer­i­can Col­lege of Foot and An­kle Sur­geons. It is rec­om­mended adults drink eight to 10 glasses of wa­ter per day at 8 ounces per glass, Pinker said.

“The hu­man body op­er­ates on a very sim­ple for­mula: Stress plus rest equals growth,” Benedetto said. “In or­der to en­cour­age adop­tion of this mind­set, I like to re­de­fine what I mean by ‘rest’ to the avid ex­er­cis­ers I work with.”